Tech College move to robotics final

DOWNINGTOWN – The Technical College High School’s Brandywine Campus robotics team will advance to the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championships on April 24-27.

A robotics team of seven students from the Brandywine Campus, called the Autobots, won a state robotics competition on March 2, securing them a spot at the world championships, which will be held in St. Louis, Missouri.

Facing off robot-to-robot in a technologically sophisticated game of tic-tac-toe, 35 eligible high school teams from Pennsylvania and four surrounding states battled it out in the tournament-style competition at Millersville University at the state championship. The playing field was a 12-by-12-foot arena on which four teams at a time, divided into a blue or red alliance, raced against the clock to position plastic rings onto a center rack.

Under the direction of John Cilladi, the Electronic Systems Technology instructor at Brandywine Campus, and team captain Steven Rickards, the Autobots made it through the qualification rounds undefeated and advanced to the semi-final matches as the number one seed, and through the final round nabbed the title of Pennsylvania state champions.

“We evolved from a ‘club’ to a ‘team’ where every member knows the importance of his role and worked hard to achieve our goal,” said Cilladi. Student members were drawn from two programs, Electronic Systems Technology and Computer Information Systems, and include Rickards; robot driver Kevin Hill; scouting technicians Jameson Somers and Ben Cavanaugh; competition analysts Jon Bollenback and Alan Cohn; and pit crew master Billy Hamlet.

In October, the Autobots began meeting weekly to discuss, design, and build their robot. As the state competition drew near, they met after school for several hours at least three times a week. After each competition, students brainstormed how to improve and best modify the robot. These periodic reevaluations meant the robot was always in a state of flux.

The goal of FIRST Tech Challenge is to encourage young people to pursue education and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. High school students gain hands-on programming and prototyping experience throughout the robot design phase, and learn to work as a team when competing and cooperating in alliances at the tournaments.